Chapter 1: What players have announced their participation in the 2026 World Baseball Classic?
on more than Sean Spradling right now. It still makes me laugh. So you have the backdrop. Your backdrop is taking a step up. I will say this.
Yeah, I think last time we talked, Rob, it was a blank wall behind me. It looked like I was being forced.
It looked like you were in a dormitory. But it's okay. It's all right. You have a map of the earth behind you. You have a World Baseball classic. um, pennant type of pennant when I had it when I was eight years old. Um,
and and uh are those war stick bats or what they are you got a couple war stick bats up here war stick bat so shout out to war stick your employer so excellent excellent backdrop and i think there's a lot to build what is that little is that a little another little globe there what is that yeah i got a globe from a trip a mission trip i went to in haiti when i was in high school so that's pretty cool i'll do one other piece of show and tell so yeah but i have uh
So I have these two things that I need to find a way to bring it closer to the backdrop so you can see them. One of them is the last pitch.
Oh, that's a great card. It's a Topps card. To paint the picture of it, it's behind home plate. Of the last pitch, Otani to Trout. What a great card that is.
I don't buy a ton of cards anymore. I used to collect like crazy, but this is one I had to buy. That moment is solidified in baseball.
Not to be uncouth, but how much did that cost? Oh, honestly, that one was maybe $60. Okay, because I've got a feeling, and the reason I ask is I feel like that is something that you're going to be a millionaire off of in a few years.
I mean, I'm biased because I own one, but I fully believe that WBC cards are going to explode eventually. the same way that they did in soccer. Soccer cards, World Cup cards, got exploded over COVID. They were never really a thing. World Cup stickers and cards in soccer.
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Chapter 2: How is MLB planning to market the upcoming World Baseball Classic?
I don't know how many people have in retrospect of like, okay, how nervous were you compared to, was that the most nervous that you have ever been? Which is a fair question because the guy...
That's been played in a lot of big games. Even being his teammate, I remember him talking about this on Mookie's podcast after the tournament. He said he had never faced Shohei in any setting when Shohei was on the mound. Not on the backfields, not in any sort of practices. Because of that, he stepped up to the plate and it was the first time he'd ever faced Shohei.
That's crazy. That's awesome. That's sort of a good springboard into what we're talking about because Obviously, when that happened, everyone had fully bought into the WBC. It was everything that they had hoped it would be. And almost immediately, people were turning to 2026 and saying, okay, what's 2026 going to be now? It's going to be as good as this was.
Now you're going to get more players to play in. Everyone understands. The guys who didn't play in it, they have FOMO. They have all of it. It almost turned the page immediately, and that's where we started to see guys say, yeah, I'm playing, I'm playing, I'm playing, I'm playing. So with that said, this is sort of the exercise I want to start with, Sean, is –
At that moment when you say, okay, this is the amount of commitments you're going to get by the time we get to November 2025, is it what you thought it would be like now? I mean, there's a lot of announcements to go, but as we sit here, how many months out are we? Four months out or whatever it is? Is it what you thought it would be after the excitement of that?
Man, that's a really good question. Because I think that
looking forward to 2026 back in 2023 after the tournament everyone was just on riding a high of of that tournament of that at bat even at the end of japan winning um japanese baseball has i feel like exploded in popularity over in the states like everyone's waiting for the newest japanese player to move to mlb every single offseason so those kind of Developments aren't surprising at all to me.
I think from a fan perspective, I think that it's been pretty much what I expected in the sense that fans are ready for the tournament. And we're four months out. But even earlier this year, when we had qualifiers in the spring, fans were locked into the qualifiers. In 2022, there really weren't many people watching WBC qualifiers.
This year, there weren't.
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Chapter 3: What makes the 2026 World Baseball Classic different from previous tournaments?
Corbin Carroll. Corbin Carroll. That's right. But you're right. I mean, why just Team USA? That's bizarre. I mean, it's a great point by you. Why just that? The more I think about it, it is bizarre that they just did Team USA. There's other guys there. Yeah.
And it's like MLB will have, and I love that they do this, like they have a full on graphic that's edited. They have a whole presentation at the MLB Awards for when Corbin Carroll and PCA and all these guys commit for Team USA. But then the other 19 national teams, there's not really any announcements. There's no dialogue being had in English.
Like the Japanese reporters will cover the Japanese team. The Dominican reporters will cover the Dominican roster. But MLB is made up of all of these different nations and territories and players from all around the world. So I think maybe a missed opportunity or at least an opportunity to grow would be actually them announcing roster news for all 20 countries.
People want to know that Bo Bichette has committed to play for Brazil. We'll talk about more names in a bit, but those kind of guys that you wouldn't expect or you wouldn't know or
like team Taiwan I'm sure already has like most of their guys that they know are going to play it's an honor for those countries like those players from those countries to represent their national team so frankly it's a little less of a commitment and it's more everyone is committed and now it just depends on who those like managers are going to choose so I don't know I think it's an opportunity that MLB could grow on that front so along those lines let me ask you
Players who are playing for countries that you might not expect. Yeah. Right? You mentioned Bo Bichette, right? That was one. Brazil. And congratulations to Brazil and Bo Bichette. But there are other guys, and it's great when they sort of pop up out of nowhere.
And I love during the season, like I'll text you and say, hey, you know, this guy, you know, he'll say, hey, well, he's actually eligible for whatever. Like Brendan Donovan, I remember, was Germany, right? It's like – and there's these guys and – they pop up and a lot of them play. They know they aren't going to go. They aren't going to go to the finals.
But it's almost like, oh, this is going to be a cool experience. And maybe in the back of their mind, like, I'm not going to have to be far away from my team that long either. But it'll be a cool experience for a couple weeks. Who are some of the guys that jump out to you? Oh, like the surprises? Yeah, yeah. Just like the, oh, man, I didn't know that he was going to be playing for this team.
Yeah.
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Chapter 4: Which players are still uncommitted for the World Baseball Classic?
But his mom is from Puerto Rico. Yeah. And his dad is from – his grandfather on his dad's side is from Panama. So because of that, he is – I mean, he's half Panamanian, half Puerto Rican, full American. He could play for any of the countries he wanted, any of those three. But, I mean, we'll see. If he were to join –
I mean, honestly, I don't think that he's going to join Team USA because there's just so many outfielder options that I don't think that that's their top priority. But for Puerto Rico, he... I mean, Puerto Rico would fall in love with him if he was in the center of that lineup, especially without Kike being able to play with injury. But then talk about being a star in a lineup.
If he wants to play for Panama, he would stand out as one of the premier athletes playing in Panama.
It's like Bichette Brazil. I mean, it's the same sort of thing. Did I see jazz chisels playing for great Britain? Is that right?
Yeah. Yeah. Yes. Okay. Well, so he, he said he wants to play. It just depends on if like, frankly, if the Yankees are cool with him playing and, and if injuries, everything like, as long as he's healthy going into the next season, because he committed to play for great Britain last WBC, but had his injury during the season.
So he wasn't able to play, but since he's Bahamian and the Bahamas are a former British colony, he's eligible to play for Great Britain. A lot of Bahamians play for the British team.
Man, this is the six degrees of your country in the WBC. It's crazy. So who is... Is there a player that you were surprised that hasn't committed yet? One of the things that you talk about Team USA and the other countries is that it almost feels, and I know this isn't across the board, but it almost feels like
if you're from that country, if you're from the Dominican, Puerto Rico, Japan, whatever it is, that it's just assumed that you're going to play. It almost feels that way. With USA, you have to do a huge presentation of like, oh my goodness, he's playing. Is there anyone who hasn't signed up yet or hasn't Or you're kind of surprised that he hasn't?
I'm not just talking – maybe Team USA, maybe not. Another country.
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Chapter 5: What impact did the last World Baseball Classic have on player commitments?
That's an interesting one. Again, it's almost an unfair question because there's injuries, there's free agency, there's also... sometimes guys have to make teams. You know, this is another thing. Like we want to say, well, you want all the good top prospects. Well, the fact is, is that, you know, it's,
It's one of these things where if a guy's going to make a team, and some guys choose to go to WBCA, they say, hey, listen, I don't care. I'll figure it out later. One guy that jumps to mind in that respect was Jaron Duran. Jaron Duran went to play for Team Mexico, and he was a pinch runner, got like five at-bats, but had a great experience there.
Ramiel Tapia makes the team over him because he's not in camp. So, yeah. So, I don't know.
Well, and I mean, there's a bunch of different reasons why we may not have heard from players as to why they're committed or not. Honest, if I'm being totally honest, I'd say... There's probably most of the players I can think of that aren't committed yet. I bet if we asked them, they would tell us if they're committed or not. Right. It's just a lot of time. Media doesn't ask that question.
It's fair. I mean, we had a conversation about that this earlier this year and you were like, I think, I mean, I'm going to be talking to, I talked to Bo Bichette last week. I asked him about team Brazil.
I think honestly, the day that I was going to ask, I would say, oh, I'll get to it tomorrow or whatever. And then that day, bizarrely, it comes out, oh, by the way, he's committed to Brazil. Yeah, it just so happened to someone. Here's the thing, Sean. It's such low-hanging fruit for reporters. It's so easy. And I know that I've talked to Garrett Crochet about it.
And that's another thing is that when we talk about, okay, How did the last WBC impact the commitment to this WBC? It has to start with pitching because this is the hardest thing, not necessarily for Japan. Japan, they're going to pitch. They're going to play. They're going to pitch. Amai is a free agent. He's going to pitch.
That's how it is. Their rotation could be eight deep with all-stars.
There's no hesitation. It's too bad MLB. We're going to pitch. But there is that, I know at least for USA, there was always like that's the piece of the puzzle which we're kind of missing because these guys aren't committing. What do you feel like that stands heading into this one?
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Chapter 6: How are international players representing unexpected countries in the WBC?
Do we know? I haven't heard anything from Schubert yet. See, that's, again, a miss on my part. Literally, we just interviewed him a couple days ago. No way. Yeah, he was a red carpet at the MLB Awards, and it would have been so easy. You've got to ask those questions. Take the low-hanging fruit. But that's the point, Sean, is that this has to be top of mind.
I think it comes back to what you're talking about. They had a nice little segment in the MLB Awards for those guys announcing they're going to play. But, okay, it's not top of mind for people. It's not. And it should be. It should be for a lot of reasons.
It should be because it's going to basically the baseball, the exciting baseball season, as much as I like spring training, the exciting baseball season is now this year going to start a lot earlier. Yeah. You have to plan for which players aren't going to be around your spring training.
You know, you have to start talking to you about, okay, which team is going to be, you know, at some point we'll do power rankings, which is one of my favorite things to do. All of this, it's much better to talk about than a lot of stuff that we're talking about now, guessing who's going to sign in free agency.
I don't know. I know I'm an outlier because I'm a WBC sicko, and it's always top of mind for me, but my goal is to help it be top of mind and to be a consistent conversation, like a drumbeat throughout the MLB season. and the CPBL season, the NPB season, the KBO season, so that it's just like a common narrative. And I take a lot of inspiration, honestly, from soccer, like world soccer.
The World Cup is always a talking point. There are always media outlets talking about like who, okay, like maybe we're two years before, but if we were to have the WBC now or the World Cup now, this is what the team Netherlands would look like in the World Cup. Or they have World Cup qualifiers years before. They have international friendlies throughout the year.
And I know we're far from that in baseball. But at least if we could get that to be a consistent conversation that's being had, that these players are going to be playing for their national teams. It's a joy to watch them get to play. I mean, a lot of the Dominican players...
it was a super controversial video when it was posted in 2023, but like a lot of the Dominican players said that they'd rather win the WBC than the world series.
Like that's a very real experience for so many people, players around the world and fans watching their country play, because it just means so much more to have their country, their flag and their name representing their family on their back. So it's, it's something that, I think as the WBC grows, the conversation will continue to get bigger and bigger.
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Chapter 7: What challenges do players face in committing to the World Baseball Classic?
I don't care. Either one. Oh, man. It could be Adam Adovino for the Team Italy, if you like. That's a good one. Rob Bradford is... Yeah, I'm... Could Scotland... Does Scotland have a team? I could probably wedge my way in there. Hey, you could play for... I mean, that's still UK. You could play for Britain. Oh, yeah. Are you kidding me? I have an ancestor that came home in Mayflower.
I mean, it's like... He did it basically so I could play in the WBC, I feel like. Totally.
Okay. Give me one second because I think that Great Britain has, on that point, I think they have the opportunity to surprise a ton of people if they get everyone who they could get. Because we've already talked about Jazz Chisholm. And just like Jazz, like another Bahamian player, Sebastian Walcott, one of the top players in the minors, like he is probably going to play for Great Britain.
But the ones that stick out to me are, I'll start on the offensive side and then I'll go to the pitchings. But there's players in NPB who are of Nigerian and Ugandan descent that are still technically eligible for Great Britain. Shun Mizutani is, I mean, one of the top outfielders in NPB.
And when I put him on the dream team, baseball fans in Japan freaked out because they were like, there's no way he's eligible. But he is, and if they're able to get him to play, a Japanese player on Great Britain would be pretty electric.
Would he get a lot of pushback from that?
I don't know. I don't think so, because I don't know if he's quite to the tier of being able to make Samurai Japan yet. I think if he was the best outfielder in Japan, there'd be no questions asked. He'd play for Japan. But to me, it kind of feels like a... I don't know, like a Vinny Pasquantino playing for Italy. I think if he were to get the call for the U.S.
and he was the best American first baseman, he might play for USA.
Okay. So it sounds like Great Britain's your sleeper team.
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Chapter 8: How can fans stay engaged with the World Baseball Classic leading up to the event?
Then finally, finally, he wedged his way on the team. But I think that some teams should hire you just to make it clear, like basically as the GMs or the recruiting coordinators of saying, okay, here's your opportunities of guys that you can get to play for you. Hey, Czech Republic. You don't have to rely on the UPS driver anymore.
It's funny you say that. I've had conversations with managers of national teams in the WBC that have told me that they use me as a scout, as a recruiter. There you go. After the tournament last time, Benji went to me and was like, yeah, dude, you were basically a scout for me on Twitter. I didn't know some of these players were eligible for Mexico.
But because of that deep... I mean, I have to do deep dives into citizenship law of these different countries. One of the ones that I was really interested to see if was a legitimate player that could play for a different country was Skubal is a Czech surname. And so he's not... eligible to my understanding because it's just, it's just too distant. It's just like too many generations removed.
But when I saw his last name and I saw it was Czech, I started doing all of this digging into his family history. And I was like, what if, what if, uh, Tarek Skubal was leading Czech Republic out into the WVC?
Oh my goodness. Oh my, that'd be so good. Does crochet have like a distant relative in, uh, We need him for Team USA, though. Again, to come back to it, you need pitching. You still need pitching. If you want to win, you're going to need pitching. All right, man. Boy, this is great. I always enjoy our conversations. It is great. It's not that far away. We're middle of November.
It gets into December. Next thing you know, you're January, and all of a sudden teams are – when do they start working out? Like they basically – February. Early February, right? I mean, I know that when spring training starts, but a lot of times players don't even go to their spring trainings. They go straight to wherever. Yeah. Yeah. All right. Well, keep up the good work.
We're relying on you. Thank you, man. All right.
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